


The Snow Leopards of Kilimanjaro

by nineteenhundredsocks



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety, Ash Lynx Needs A Hug, Chaptered, Cute Okumura Eiji, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Okumura Eiji Is Protective of Ash Lynx, Okumura Eiji Loves Ash Lynx, Okumura Eiji Needs a Hug, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overthinking, Pining Ash Lynx, Pining Okumura Eiji
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineteenhundredsocks/pseuds/nineteenhundredsocks
Summary: Eiji Okumura is bad at math. When Eiji leaves a note in a course book he couldn't get his mind around, he gets a reply. Maybe he has found a friend? Or maybe it's a prank? Or maybe it's enough to change his life? Let's just say Aslan Callenreese is not entirely bad at math.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 13
Kudos: 47





	1. Eiji's notification sound is Peppa Pig's snort and it does not help him

**Author's Note:**

> okaaay i love these boys so much and i just wanted them to live lives where they don't actually die. i really love college aus and putting Eiji and Aslan (yes, i abso-toot-a-lutely love the name Aslan, if you see me overuse it, that's why) was something i had to do right away. i considered ending the fic after writing a couple more chaps but honestly, i love it so much i think i want to keep going! let's see how that goes hahaa also also, im super open to criticism so if you see something i need to improve on, please shoot!  
> hope you enjoy this fic as much as i did writing it, and hope y'all are having a toot-a-licious day  
> p.s.my imaginary pet frog sends you all the love you deserve :D

‘ _Library. Friday evening, 7pm.’_

Eiji read the text over and over again until the words started losing their meaning and he started feeling numb.

He pocketed his phone and went over his mental list again.

Student ID? Check.

Calculus homework? Check.

Sweater in case it gets too cold, even though he has a jacket on? Stuffed into the bottom of his bag, check.

Water to prevent his throat going dry at the most inconvenient of times? Double check.

He didn’t even know why he was so anxious, he thought to himself as he locked his dorm room door. He let his hand hover over the staircase railing as he jogged down to ground floor. Skipping one step, then two, he let his mind wander. Really, he was tensed over nothing. He had found a calculus course book in the library and had decided in less than a minute that he would be better off talking to pigeons than trying to understand whatever was in front of him. So he merely left a note leaving his number and saying _I suck at this, help me. Please._

Yes, that’s it.

But wait, no, that’s not _all_ of it. Someone _actually_ replied. He had put in the note thinking the librarian would either throw it away along with the cat stickers someone anonymously keeps sticking on the books (though Eiji has no complaint over that, the cats, you see, are insanely adorable) or even if someone did end up seeing it, they would just end up prank calling him asking for pizza. He hadn’t been prepared when he saw the text from an unknown number in his notifications and he might have, just might, actually squealed like a punctured tire. How did he even manage to do that, only the Kraken knows.

The walk from his dorm to the library takes about 5 minutes and even though it would take 10 more minutes for the clock to strike 7 and Eiji surely wouldn’t be late, the voice in the back of his mind told him otherwise. A part of him hated himself for doing this but he tried his hardest to push those thoughts away. He hurried past the fountain in front of the grand staircase of the library and shrugged the water droplets off himself before pushing the door open.

The library was one of the college’s bigger buildings, with a number of polished wooden bookshelves placed in neat rows and the books placed in not-so-neat rows on them. The air conditioning gave off a faint humming in the background, oblivious to the sounds outside. There were tables between the shelves and even some near the windows lining the walls.

He looked around and found the librarian staring at him through her wired glasses, eyebrows raised. Eiji always directly went to his spot at the corner of the huge room, but right now he was just standing there, hands fidgeting at his side, clueless as to where to go. Maybe he should have asked where he should meet his mysterious saviour, uh oh.

Maybe he did hate himself for this.

_Was this even a good idea?_


	2. Lifeless

Aslan was bored. His exams were coming up and he needed to revise, but he already knew way too many tricks to solve each of the problems in a minute and he couldn’t bring himself to go through another one of his old homework assignments. He was staying up later than usual these days and he found it harder to find an appetite. He had come to the library with the hope of taking his mind off of everything, either by finding a new course book to solve or if he was lucky, he would find a good book to keep him company through those restless nights. When Aslan’s low expectations were pushed even lower after he saw that no new additions were made to the Classics section in the library yet, he had found himself idly turning the pages of a calculus course book he randomly picked up. He took a cat sticker sheet from his bag and looked around to see if anyone was paying him any attention. Seeing that he was left alone to his business, he stuck a couple cats, careful to not cover any of the questions and filling only a part of the margins. Doing that made him happy. And a little less bored.

He sighed and slid the cat stickers back into his bag. He started looking for a problem he couldn’t solve, he loved being challenged. That was not his lucky day, or so he thought. Soon enough, he found a post-it note stuck on the corner of a page in that very book.

_‘I suck at this, help me. Please. -Eiji”_

There was a number scribbled in a fairly legible handwriting underneath that. Aslan smiled to himself and he could feel his own eyes sparkling.

He wasn’t bored anymore.


	3. Eiji is going to buy an angel patch for his denim jacket

Eiji smiled at the librarian as to throw off the concern that was now starting to etch into her face. It seemed to have worked, for, she pleasantly responded with a smile of her own and turned back to her magazine that seemed to advertise sodas. Eiji took a deep breath and started walking aimlessly. He first wandered off to the tables lined near the windows. Eiji was blessed with sharp hearing, though he doesn’t know if it was rather a curse than a blessing, but he wasn’t eavesdropping when he found a group of friends sitting at one of the table and trying to figure out a nine-letter word for ‘ _The Snows of Kilimanjaro._ ’ 

He simply whispered, “Hemingway.”  


He kept the smug smile to himself as he waved the group a goodbye and headed the way he came. That’s when it hit him. The course book section! That’s where he would find his saviour. Eiji worried at the hems of his denim jacket unconsciously as he hurried to the shelf where he recalled placing the book with the post-it. Just as he reached the worn down shelf, a calm voice spoke up. 

“Eiji?” Eiji turned towards the source of the voice.

 _Oh_. His saviour was indeed an angel.


	4. Don’t swallow Legos, kids

Aslan smiled at the black-haired guy in front of him— _Eiji_. He must have seen the other in the halls before but neither did they take any classes together nor have they ever spoken to each other before. Eiji stood there for a while, as if registering the fact that Aslan was really sitting there and wasn’t a mere hallucination.

“The name’s Aslan.” Aslan finally spoke after realising Eiji wasn’t going to move until he did.

“Oh-oh! Aslan! Thanks a lot! I really didn’t think anyone would actually even see that note and honestly I didn’t even know why I put it there in the first place,” Eiji sputtered as he settled himself onto the seat across the Aslan. Eiji took out a couple papers from his bag at which Aslan thought was safe to assume they were math worksheets.

“Lucky it was I who found that lil note, then? I’m fairly well in calculus but I have near to no experience in teaching. So you gotta help me out here too, Eiji.”

“Definitely, definitely! I can’t appreciate it enough that you even went out of your way to contact me,” Eiji chuckled nervously. Boy, this dude was a mess. But perhaps Aslan liked that.

“Anyway, show me the question you were stuck at. I’ll give you some tricks.”

“Alright then, you see this one right here? I can read a construction manual better than that. Oh I should mention I suck at construction. Like, das used to buy me Legos as a kid but somehow I just thought the blocks would be happier in my belly than stacked on top each other. Ah, I’m getting sidetracked, sorry. The point is I don’t get this. Like, at all.”

Aslan’s grin grew wider with Eiji’s every word but stopped when he sensed Eiji was doing it to escape his anxiousness. 

“Are you nervous?” Aslan didn’t need an answer as it was obvious, so he continued.

“You don’t have to be. It’s okay if you don’t get it, I’m here to help you not judge you. It’s okay to not get something at the first try. Or even the second or third. Just don’t get tired of yourself trying.” 

Eiji stared at him. _Had he spoken too much? Too soon?_

“Aslan,” Eiji whispered low enough Aslan would have thought he never really said his name if Eiji didn’t continue. 

“Thank you. I’ll try my best. You can teach me now.”

Aslan could feel the genuinity in Eiji’s soft voice and did exactly that, he taught him.

Somehow, even though he knew this boy for barely an hour, Aslan knew he wanted to know more about Eiji. Aslan always trusted his instincts, and this time they were telling him that Eiji was someone interesting, someone who made things around him interesting as well. 

In the next hours, Aslan felt the most calm than he had in the past months, he had forgotten all about how he had to go back to his dorm for another sleepless night filled with dreadful thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is genuinity a word? i genuinely think it is, but??


	5. Cat Stickers and Cacti Cookies

Eiji had never had this much fun _studying_. Why in the world was it _fun_? Actually, that was a very easy question. He was with Aslan. Though he had looked like a typical movie-pretty boy, with those jade eyes and wire-rimmed glasses, he was a dork. He made puns, and laughed at Eiji’s too. He had a shimmer in his eyes whenever he laughed and it made Eiji smile a little wider each time. Each time, he felt like won a trophy of his own. He found that calculus was rather easy when Aslan taught him a couple tips and helped him where he needed it. He was a great teacher, just too modest.

After the clock announced midnight and the librarian finally hushed them out, they just stood there on the top of the staircase. Never had a silence felt _not_ awkward for Eiji until now.

“Hey Eiji, do you want to know a secret?”

His heart skipped every time Aslan took his name, as if it was trying to push all the blood in Eiji’s body to his cheeks, and somehow that made his throat go dry too, every time. So he just raised his eyebrows in response.

“Those cat stickers you mentioned earlier,” Aslan said, pulling out a cat sticker sheet out of the little zip of his bag. He held the sheet with his index and middle finger and turned a smug smile on Eiji. Eiji laughed out loud and couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Dork,” he said, finally managing to control his giggles, poking Aslan in his shoulder.

“Says the man who geeked out over the cacti-shaped cookies from the library café.”

“Hey! Those were _cool_.”

“Yeah, but your squealing surely left a couple students deaf,” Aslan laughed while Eiji pouted.

They grinned at each other and walked in comfortable silence till they reached Eiji’s dorm. Okay now, maybe it was awkward. Eiji had had a fun night, a productive one, even. How was he going to thank Aslan? Before he could say anything though, Aslan piped up.

“Hey Eiji?”

His heart gave another skip. “Hm?”

“About the test you have tomorrow,” Aslan scratched his neck and Eiji would have sworn it was Aslan who was blushing red now. “Don’t do well,” he continued.

When Eiji just tilted his head in confusion, Aslan grinned and explained. 

“So that I can tutor you again.”

Okay _no_ , Eiji won the non-existent blushing contest this time too. He didn’t even have the time to properly thank Aslan that he took off jogging towards his own dorm. Eiji felt himself smile like an idiot, high on dopamine and something else he was yet to discover.

* * *

That night, sleep came easy to Aslan. No nightmares either. His dreams were filled with cacti shaped cookies.


End file.
